Advice for young people

What advice would you give to a university student who is going to graduate this year?

Consider by yourself and what you’d like to be shall come true. There are two reasons why I believe it.

First, though a lot of young students might insist that they always think for them, students aren't aware of the true meaning of it.

About two months ago, I took a lecture in my university that I graduated from 20 years ago. The lecture was about how to build the carrier and how to learn during the university days. After 60 minutes speech, I discussed with 215 students.

Amazingly, they showed more conservative thoughts that I expected. It looks like older generation people. Of course, they didn’t agree with the thoughts. Rather they seemed to think what they should do to go beyond the old world. For example, a female student asked me whether women are possible to go on the main career streams. It was really incredible that she lives in 21 century. I’ve never been crossed my business by a reason why I am a woman. I have no experience during my 20 year business.

After a while my considering, I found that it was caused by a kind of imprinting. Newborn chicks think moving objects as their parent. People whom young students meet are very limited. Since many of them are far older generation people like their teachers or their parents, the world that students think is very similar to the one that older people think.　I hope they win their own world by their consideration.

Second, the advice is based on my 20 year experience. It is very hard to find that there are no world-wide accidents and no paradigm shift. In other words, we definitely meet big changes and have to change ourselves to fit the changes that surround our society.

When I started my business about 20 years ago, both cell-phone and internet are not poplar. The first day when I started to work for the computer science labs, the first task was to decide my log-in account for computers. The internet existed at the time, but we couldn’t see a word ‘internet’ in any dictionary. Business people used to wear a white shirt and to knot a tie every morning. Almost of all office workers spent all their business life in a same company that they started to work for. How about today? Dismissal and moving are getting popular and structure of the society has been changing dynamically.

Have you ever been to a center of a typhoon? It is fine and quiet. You might forget you are in the storm. It is a true nature of the storm. When people are in a storm, they can’t see where they are. I’m sure that it’s important to consider by one self and believe it. There are no textbooks for changing day. Only what you’d like to be is a compass beyond paradigm shifting.

In a decade, I experienced September 11, Lehman Crisis, big earthquake in east Japan and other accidents. During two decade, the yen rate has repeated decreasing and increasing. However, I know my happiness of my business has been free from changes and accidents. The biggest deciding factor of the happiness is an effort and a way of thinking.


Now, some people insist that it’s a time for a change. A famous professor at London Business school, Lynda Gratton says in her book “The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here" that the way of working have been changing dramatically till 2025. She also predicts the management without diverseness will die and the meaning of leadership will differ from the current.

So I’d like to tell you again. Consider by yourself and what you’d like to be shall come true.